POP Displays’ Roseanne Alletto, a 26-year veteran of the infrequently lauded, yet essential to storefront retailers, point-of-purchase industry (“People accept the fact that when you walk into a store, there’s something that holds a lipstick,” she affirms), is the only woman on the display-producing enterprise’s executive committee. As vice president of sales operations and one of just six committee members, Alletto helps “make basically all of the decisions for the company.”
Despite the additional mantle of managing her own Fortune 100 accounts (one of which grew threefold this past year; the other is forecasted at $5 million), you’ll find her working late into the night, and on weekends, with the spirit of an upstart still making her way in the business world. “Last week,” Alletto says, “my team was here until 9, 10 o’clock every night. I’ll work with them side by side. If I can’t help, I’m here to buy dinner.”
The Brooklyn native is so dedicated to her 28-person team, she keeps an apartment near POP’s combined office/factory on Tuckahoe Road in Yonkers. The proximity is similarly accommodating to her role as “probably the only person that has visibility to everything at one time” across all of the operation’s departments, from engineering to the downstairs model shop, where creatives turn renderings into functional, 3D prototypes—later to be mass-manufactured and installed at outlets like CVS and Walmart, proffering nail lacquers and this month’s must-have mascara.
Says Marketing VP Linda Nash, “She provides direction and technical guidance to the entire organization. Prior to Roseanne, many groups were ‘silo-ed.’ She worked to create a more collaborative working environment.” Prioritizing healthy relationships among those she leads is a platform that, perhaps implausibly, has propelled her to the top ranks of the industry; POP Displays averages 550 national-brand commissions per year, and, Alletto says, “every single project comes through me.”
Alletto, who’s been with POP for 12 years, confides what else got her to her current position six years ago: “Someone took notice—the CEO at the time was surprised I knew more than some of the functional department heads.” That might be why she says, “I like to train and teach. There is nothing better than growing yourself and giving someone an opportunity within the business.” When it comes to mentoring female employees, specifically, Alletto says, “It’s not about being aggressive anymore; it’s about being knowledgeable and assertive. People listen to a whisper harder than they listen to someone who yells.”
